


small and silver (teach me how to lie)

by Sameifer



Series: small and silver [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, M/M, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 09:55:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20225941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sameifer/pseuds/Sameifer
Summary: He told her about Bucky’s soul lingering, the guilt at the thought of moving on, the fact that he doesn’t want to let go even if he knows deep down, he needs to try. He cried and pulled his feet under himself, wanting desperately to be small again.





	small and silver (teach me how to lie)

**Author's Note:**

> Steve goes to therapy!  
also, this series is not linear. This particular story takes place before the events of the winter soldier. please enjoy :)  
(title from small and silver by Wet)

Steve has only ever loved one person; across both of his lifetimes. He knows that it’s completely natural to have more than one love in his life. He knows it’s okay to have feelings for more than one person. He knows it’s okay to move on after losing the love of his life. He knows, he knows, he  _ knows.  _

But he just can’t.

There’s this looming presence above him. There’s a vice that clenches down on his heart, on his skull. He can’t do it, can’t let anyone into the places that Bucky inhabited—still inhabits. See, Bucky’s ghost isn’t floating around in the air, haunting Steve everywhere he goes. No, Bucky is still inside of Steve. He feels Bucky all through him; in the backs of his eyes and spilling from his mouth like a cold exhale. Bucky is in his veins, coursing through him and reaching every single millimeter of his numb body. Bucky’s soul left its body only to float into Steve’s, filling him to the brim and bringing him the closest he can ever be to whole.

And there has never, ever been another person that has made Steve feel like he’s a part of something bigger. All the history books and museum exhibits paint him and Peggy into something they never were. She looked at him and he looked back because he thought he had to. But Peggy knew something was wrong, that Steve wasn’t looking at her but through her. She must have known it the day he crossed into enemy lines on the off chance that Buck was still alive. It was at that moment that they reached a silent understanding; Peggy never asked, and Steve never told, but they both knew what the other wanted to say. Peggy moved on then, and Steve stopped looking through her— focused his eyes back on Bucky, his Bucky, that he’d just drug off a metal table in Austria.

He told all of this to his therapist during their third session. This was the fourth therapist he’d seen in the two and a half years he had been awake; no one else ever seeming to feel right after the first appointment. This therapist, however, sees Steve in a way he never thought he would be seen. She is a middle-aged woman with centuries-old wisdom. She never acts as if she already knows who Steve is and what he’s been through.  _ “I’m going to treat you just like any other patient,”  _ she said during the first session. _ “You’re going to tell me whatever you want me to know, and I’m going to listen and help you to the best of my abilities. And hopefully, when you walk out of my office every week, you feel a little lighter than when you walked in.” _

So, when that third session rolled around, and Steve had been having a particularly hard week, he broke down and told her everything. He told her about Bucky’s soul lingering, the guilt at the thought of moving on, the fact that he doesn’t want to let go even if he knows deep  down , he needs to try. He cried and pulled his feet under himself, wanting desperately to be small again.

His therapist took her glasses off and leaned forward to look at Steve before she spoke.  _ “When my husband was dying, it was really hard for me. I was sure I’d never be able to let go. And you know what he said to me?”  _ She paused to make sure Steve was listening to her as carefully as she was speaking.  _ “He said “I’m dying, there’s nothing we can do about it. I want you to move on and be happy again one day. You have to be. Because I’m not in heaven if I have to worry about you.” _

Steve didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing. He nodded his way through the rest of the appointment and then went home. Everything his therapist had said was right; Steve knew he needed to let Buck rest, but he just couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t only him keeping Bucky’s spirit here. That maybe it was more than just a phantom limb, or presence. That maybe there was a reason he woke up again. No one else felt what he felt, and maybe that’s why it was so powerful. Because it was just him and Buck again, just like it used to be. A different wavelength and medium, but together all the same.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> talk wif me on twittuh @sameifer  
(the quote "I'm not in heaven if I have to worry about you." is from an episode of The Golden Girls btw)


End file.
